Chris Knight at Cannes: The Angels’ Share is too ribald for its own good

Cannes film festival: The Angels' Share is too ribald for its own good

CANNES • Language is a touchy subject at the movies. In the United States, more than one non-sexual use of the f-word will usually result in an R rating. A similar problem cropped up in Ken Loach’s newest film, The Angels’ Share, which premieres in competition at Cannes this week.

The film may not have the right stuff to walk off with the serious Palme d’Or prize, but it’s a rollicking, ribald, crowd-pleasing comedy about a group of unemployed Glaswegian miscreants who hatch a plan to steal a million-pound cask (that’s value, not weight) of the rarest whisky on Earth.

The British Board of Film Classification was not amused, however, and threatened to give the film an “18” rating (adults only) unless the language was toned down.

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Loach and his producing partner Rebecca O’Brien described some of the bureaucratic difficulties they had with the BBFC. For delicacy’s sake I’ll change the contentious expletive to Hunt, in honour of Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s Secretary of State for Culture, whom The Angels’ Share writer Paul Laverty berated at the press conference for the film.

“We were allowed seven Hunts,” said the 75-year-old director, “but only two of them could be aggressive Hunts.” O’Brien added: “We were allowed to keep all the non-aggressive Hunts, and I think we just covered up the other Hunts.”

“You get into the realm of surrealism here in terms of language,” Loach observed. “The British middle class is obsessed by what they call bad language. The odd oath, like a word that goes back to Chaucer’s time, they will ask you to cut, but the manipulative and deceitful language of politics they use themselves.

“So I think they should re-examine what is bad language, and have respect for our ancient oaths and swear words, which we all enjoy.”

The Angels’ Share takes its name from a term used in the whisky business to describe the annual minuscule evaporation of the product. The film also made use of Scottish whisky expert Charles MacLean, who came to Cannes to help promote it.

“They always say when it’s raining that it’s good weather for making whisky, and it’s also good weather for drinking whisky,” he said in reference to Cannes’ unseasonably wet, cool weather. “So I feel very much at home.”

MacLean said that in a pivotal scene, the liquid he imbibed in the film was the real thing. “I felt very sorry for the extras at the tasting scene because I was the only one who had the whisky and the scene took quite a long time to shoot.” He seemed shocked when asked what it was like. “It was first-rate whisky. I wouldn’t drink anything else.”

Loach is not known for his comic sensibilities. What humour his film contains is generally grim, and his recent films have focused on the Iraq War (Route Irish), immigration and unemployment (It’s a Free World) and the Irish War of Independence (The Wind That Shakes the Barley).

Even The Angels’ Share contains a tragic underpinning, touching on youth unemployment and violence. “We wanted to take a tragic situation but present it in a way that would make people smile, but not ignore the reality underneath,” Loach said.

“I think our attitude was that you don’t direct it as a comedy. You just try to tell the truth about the characters … and then funny things happen and they should make you smile as in life,” he continued. “You could take the same characters and tell a tragic story. Just tell the story of this moment and the criterion is not will we get a laugh or will we shed a tear. The criterion is, is it true?”